How To Draw Heads & Faces: Drawing The Ear

1. Introduction: Hey, it's clayton, Welcome to my class on drawing ears. Ears are very complex facial feature to tackle because so often we place our attention on the features that sit on the front of the face, such as the eyes and nose and the mouth. These features also express a lot more, which means the ears get even less attention than we would otherwise give them, even if they were on the front of the face. And so they'd become more difficult to draw since we're less familiar with them. Which is why I've dedicated this entire class to showing you exactly step-by-step how to draw the ears, not just from the side view and the front view, in the back view, the key standard points of view, but also those more difficult dynamic angles such as the bottom-up and top-down angles. I hope that you'll join me in this class and follow along with your sketch book or favorite drawing application. So that by the end of it, you've got your own set of views right there on the page in front of you. Well, if you're ready, let's get started. 2. Side View of The Ear: Let's begin with the side view. Why are we beginning with the side view of the ear instead of the front view? Well, it's because the side view of the year is actually the best representation that we're going to get of how it's anatomy looks like a, it's kinda a flattened out diagrammatic presentation of the interior ear anatomy. And once we know what that consists of, well, it becomes much, much easier to be able to take that particular viewpoint of the ear and start the foreshortened at different angles. So let's start out with that. Now. The basic ear shape is what I like to draw first. So I'll actually, because this helps me to figure out how large the ear is going to be in the first place. So I'll draw that out. What you'll notice is that it's basically almost an upside down pair. So you put a little outline around it. Looks like an upside down pair. Or you could also think of it like a light bulb right? On drawer, a little a little diagram over to the side here. And for a red outline around it too. So that's the basic shape of the ear that we're dealing with. Okay, cool. So once we've got the outline of the year established, and I've drawn that in very, very lightly. Hopefully you can see what I've done there. What we can then do is start to draw in what I like to refer to as the interior frame. Interior frame of the ear. It looks it looks a little bit like a question mark. And then here's what I mean. Right? It's going to hook into the ear at the front. And it's going to run up and follow along the shape of the ear that we established earlier. And by the way, if you do this repeatedly enough times, you'll just remember it off by heart. It's going to run back toward the back of the ear and then down into the ear lobe. Now, what you're left with at this point is almost what looks like a fish hook, at least to me. Right? This sort of fish hook like appearance. Right? So that's the shape that we're dealing with now. But the actual line that we've just drawn. Well, it looks a bit like, as I said before, it looks a bit like a question mark. So that's an easy way to remember it. So once we've made it to this point, we're then going to go ahead and place in the interior of this cartilage that we've started to draw route, I call it the Y-shaped piece of cartilage. It could also be described as something that looks like a chicken bone or like a wishbone. But again, you'll see what I mean in just a moment. So we'll pull that out from the front of the ear and then draw it down into the base. Look it up. And then around into the ear hole covering. Right. That's probably the most confusing portion. When drawing the ear. Let me just fill that in. So we can't forget the ear how we got to put that in there. Otherwise, there would be no purpose to all this complicated anatomy that sits around it. And once we got that drawn in, well, we've got another little piece of cartilage that we can bring in, once again to the ear here. But for the most part that's pretty much it. The only other thing that we need to add in is this little dip at the top of the Y-shaped piece of cartilage. And this is why it looks like the letter Y. Because once we divided at the top with this little pocket, this little indentation, that's pretty much what it looks like. Is the letter Y. Or it looks like it could look like a twig, right? So it looked like this. Are again, as I said, like a like a wishbone is another way that you could think about it. Whatever is the easiest metaphor for you to remember. I always like to associate different aspects of a drawing to real-world things because for me it just, it makes it easier to remember and hopefully it'll make it easier for you to remember as well. Okay. So we've got the shape of the ear overruled that we start off with. And then we've got the interior anatomy, which is the complicated part, the messy part of the process. But if we can get that right, this is really the hardest of view. All the ear that you're going to end up having to draw. Because all the other ones are just, well, they're foreshortened representations of this, squashed representations of this. So we'll label this. So this is the side of the ear. 3. Front View of The Ear: Now if we're looking at the ear from the direct front, well, what happens is this, right? We're still going to start, we're still going to be following the same process here. Things are just going to look a little bit different. We're going to start with a squashed representation of the initial ear shape that we learned about. Say that this is the side of the head here. Let me go ahead and do that. Now, some people's ears, they stick out at the sides more than others. It depends on the kind of character that you're drawing. Here's a sit further back. Alright, now once we've got the basic shape outlined, what we can then do is we can go ahead and draw in the frame, the interior frame of the year, as I like to call it. That's basically the same shape. It's just that this time around, this Y-shaped piece of cartilage is actually going to pop out of the ear a little bit and then come back into the ear lobe. But again, it's still that, still following that fish hook type or that call that question mark representation. And then we've got the interior of the Y-shaped piece of cartilage into wrap around, hook up and form the ear covering of the ear hall. Like so. Go. Alright, now really, probably this particular characters ears sticking a little bit too far out here. But this kinda hits the point home that we're still dealing with the same anatomy. It's just now it has been distorted, it's been squashed. And this is what is going to continue to happen. As we represent the ear from every conceivable angle that we can think of. Right now, we can't forget this little pocket that sits at the top of the Y-shaped piece of cartilage. There we go. That completes the front representation of the ear. So when you're drawing the head from the front at either what you'll be drawing. 4. Three Quarter View Of The Ear: Alright, next up, let's take a look at the three-quarter view representation of the ear. And it looks like, well something between these two. So we're still going to start with the outside shape. And what's amazing is that even though the ear is quite complicated, the demonstrations that we're doing up for it seem to be, seem to be flying through them fairly quickly. Alright, so once again, we'll start with the outside shape of the ear. You'll have to judge and determine exactly how squashed or wide the ear-shaped is going to be. Will depend on the angle of the head that you're drawing. Except we'll draw in that interior frame once again, it's going to run around the outside of the ear toward the back. And it will, it'll pretty much touch the back outside contour that we defined previously for the ear, and come back in toward the bottom of the ear lobe. Once we've done that, we're out that y-shaped piece of cartilage. Bring it down into the base of the ear, and then up again. Cover the ear opening. Alright. And then we can bring this top bit of cartilage in further. With this one. It's done. We create the little dip at the top. Separating this massive main piece of anatomy into two bits, two halves. 5. Back View of The Ear: Let's talk about the really tricky view for the ear, which is the back for you. Yes, the ear, unlike the other facial features, actually has a back view. So this is where things could completely thrown out of whack because the ear is drawn very differently from this point of view. So let's say that this time we're looking at the back of the head. The ear actually sits on top of this cup shape. I like to Wanli referred to the ear is a cup of cartilage. Essentially. That's really what it is. Alright, so I'm going to start off with the cup. I'm going to draw in the top of the ear. And then the side of the ear and then the bottom of the ear, which will be the ear lobe. And that's all there is to it. This, this two pieces. There's the outside frame of the ear, and then there's the cup that it sits on. And that's really about it. The ear actually sits on to the rest of the head. Like so. Alright, now of course we can't see any of the interior cartilage that's happening within the ear from this angle, it's all hidden because the E is actually angle forwards. Fact, if we're looking at the ears from above, Let's say that the head over here, the ears are actually being pushed off the head on an angle due to those cups. So we're looking at the head from behind. We can see the cup and we can see the see the frame of the ear, but we can't see anything that's sitting in front of it. 6. Three Quarter Back View of The Ear: So what about the three-quarter back view of the year? Well, that's a really tricky one. So let's take a look at it because we are able to see some of the interior cartilage, but we're also looking at the cup. Right? So I like to start off with the frame of the ear first. I'll sketch that out. By the way, I'll provide references to all of these so that you're able to take a look at them more closely. We're starting out with that fish hook type shape when we're presenting the ear from the back three-quarter view. And it's going to sit on top of the cup. And then as for the interior anatomy, come in and curve around into the ear. And in fact, the shift this down a bit, bringing the bottom of the ear back. Now of course, we will also see the ear Hall as well. On this angle. You got a good look at it. And possibly we won't be seeing as much of the cup. Be able to see a glimpse of it, but not too much. And we will still divide that up a piece of cartilage. This is a weird angle to draw the Iran, but it is a necessary one to learn because sometimes you will find that you're drawing the head from behind. Especially when you've got one character talking to another character. Okay, cool. So we've got our different IO views drawn up. We've done a pretty much an entire turnaround of these years. In fact. What we'll do next is we'll take a look at how the ear appears in a more dynamic points of view. 7. Top Down Side View of The Ear: Let's observe how the ear looks when we're looking at it from above on as well, from there directly on the side. We're still going to be looking at all these shapes, of course, using the same shapes we'll be using the anatomy and whatnot. Except this time around, it's going to be squashed and the vertical axis. Okay, so let's go ahead and start out with the outside shape of the ear first. We'll draw that in. Now if I'm going too fast, just focus on one of the interviews that we've covered and focus on finishing that one off before moving on to the others. Be able to go back and pause this recording as many times as you need to to follow along with the other examples. Okay, so once we've got the overall shape established, we will then go ahead and draw in the interior frame of the cartilage. Now, what you'll notice is that we've actually thickened up the top area of cartilage on the ear when we're looking at it from above. Just define the line around the outside of the ear. Here we go. And we'll continue that interior outline. Will then adding anatomy of the ear, leading it down to the ear lobe. And you can see the foreshortened effect that I've given this particular area. It actually looks like the bottom of the ear is receding away from us. Alright. Except I'm going to draw in the Y-shaped piece of cartilage. Going to curl down up and around into the ear Hall. We have it. Okay, Wonderful. I'm just going to tweak this shape just a little bit to get it looking exactly how I want it. Now I'll separate top of this Y-shaped piece of cartilage, writing the little dip in the middle that gives it its name. So that's how I add represent the ear from above. I go in here and just pull this outline out further. 8. Top Down Three Quarter View: So next up, let's take a look at how the ear looks from above, but on a three-quarter angle. Alright, so I'm going to start with the outside shape again. So if we can capture this outside shape, really, we're off to a good start. Because that's the key. As you can see there, I wasn't capturing a good shape for it, so I started again. Alright, and that's why it's especially if you're working traditionally, just keep it light. Keep it loose. And you'll find that it's much easier to make any changes you need to make. If you do, make a boo-boo along the way, I make plenty of boo-boos. So it's okay. In fact, I think a lot of artists do. And they just don't realize that other artists too. And that it's okay to mess up. Okay, so once we've got the overall shape established, so I'm going to go in now. I liked the shape. I've got the outside of the ear. I'm going to just darken it up there. Once we've got it established, we can then go ahead and lay in the interior frame. On this angle, we're actually going to see the interior cartilage pop out of the ear and then curl back down into the ear lobe. And that's what gives it that 3D effect that it has. Because remember this is cartilage, it has recesses and it has extrusions that we want to describe when we start presenting the ear, especially in these more dynamic angles. It is a very complex facial feature though, for a feature that really doesn't do a whole lot except here things. Again, it has no real form of expression. Some people can wiggle their ears, but that's not really something that you live in need to illustrate. Wonderful. So it will fill in the ear hole there. Great. Looking, good. Once again, we'll separate the top of the ear here, splitting it into two. We have it three-quarter view of the top-down ear. 9. Bottom Up Side View of The Ear: Next, let's go ahead and take a look at how we would draw the ear from the bottom-up perspective. When we're looking at it directly from the side, we're going to see the opposite effect end up happening. We're actually going to see the ear lobe expand quite a lot. And so really what we're doing by the way, has, if you want to represent this just as a line in order to think about it, we're just foreshortening this fish hook type shape or this question mark type shapes. So if I'm looking at it from above, then that question mark type shape is going to look larger at the top. If I'm looking at it from below, that question mark shape is going to look larger at the bottom. Alright, so that's essentially what's happening here as we flip the ear around and represented from all these different crazy angles. Just going to refine the outline that I laid in initially. Then I'll go ahead and lay in that interior frame, wring it out. This time around, we're going to see a little more thickness on the outer cartilage in the bottom portion of the ear. The ear lobe is also going to look gigantic, gigantic from this perspective, which is exactly what we want. Okay, now we'll see that that y-shaped piece of cartilage actually curl into the ear there. And we'll bring it out and around, hooking it up and covering the ear hall. Like so. All right there we have it. Next, kinda go ahead and do what we've done and all the other examples. Splitting the top of that cartilage in half, dividing it like a like a split in the road. And that's looking pretty good. So for the final example, we're going to do another bottom up view of the ear, but this time we're going to do it from a three-quarter view. So we'll move this one over just a little bit. 10. Bottom Up Three Quarter View: So in a three-quarter view, we're going to see very much the same effects being applied. You going to see the bottom of the ear expanding toward us? Let me read the exact shape. I'm not quite happy with it. Again. Sometimes I need to finesse what it is I'm laying down onto the page. And other times I need to completely get rid of it and start all over again. So we're looking a bit more at the front of the ear here. We might actually see that y-shaped piece of cartilage pop out the top of the ear. Take it all the way down, bringing it back into the ear. Rest down toward the ear lobe. These are some pretty crazy angles that we're drawing the ear on. And if they're a little bit too difficult for you to tackle than just focus on getting the side view of the ear affected. Because I think that once you're able to get a handle on it, that's really the key to being able to draw these other wacky perspectives. Because as I said, it's just skewed versions of that side representation of the ear. Okay? Alright, next up I'm going to draw in interior Y-shaped piece of cartilage and hook up at the end. Whoops. Actually kill that around just a little bit more over the ear hall. And we'll bring these little bits of cartilage that curl around into the front of the ear even further. I'm actually going to mess around with the shape here. That main piece of anatomy. It's popping out of the ear. Because I think we can probably tweak that and make it look a little more accurate. Here we sort of messed up with the perspective on this. Just a bit. But nothing that can't be fixed. There we go. That's looking a little bit better. Believe it or not, I actually have fun making mistakes. I have fun rejig things. It's kinda like a really enjoyable jigsaw puzzle of some kind. I like, I like the feeling of conquering a drawing that's been difficult for me to put onto the page. So when you make mistakes, don't worry about it. Have fun with it. Your learning when you're making mistakes. Providing you're able to spot them. And it's, you know, it's also giving you that that additional level of engagement that you might not have otherwise had. Trust me, when things go smoothly, becomes very boring. Just like hearing that conveyor belt mindset, when you're just knocking out, drawing up the drawing and nothing's really challenging you anymore. Embrace that. Embrace that there's always something more to learn, something more to get better at. And, and you find that it becomes a much more fulfilling act for you, just the act of drawing ears. Alright, so that is our different points of view for the ear. Now completed, we've got the side view, the front view to three-quarter view, and the back view and the back three-quarter view, and then the top down and bottom up versions of the ear as well. So remember the basic symbols that we talked about. We get the pear shape for the overall shape of the ear. We've also got the fish hook and the wishbone slash Y shape with the main piece of cartilage that you're going to want to take note of when it comes to drawing the ear. But other than that, that's really all there is to it. Just practice, practice, practice. 11. Assignment: Hey, thanks for watching. I hope that you enjoyed this class and that you got a ton of value out of it. And hopefully, as you go on throughout these lessons, you've been following along and putting what you've learned into action. And if you have, then your assignment for this class is already done and you can submit it in the project section for feedback from me. But if you haven't, that's totally fine because you can start the assignment. Now. You can recap on all the lessons within this class to remind yourself of the steps that we went through. And then put pencil to paper. Actually draw up your own ears from the various points of view that we went over. And if you're feeling adventurous, maybe even some of your own. Good luck. And as I said before, once you've completed the assignments submitted in the project section of this class for feedback. Until next time, keep drawing.